Heat-Related Mortality in Japan after the 2011 Fukushima Disaster: An Analysis of Potential Influence of Reduced Electricity Consumption.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated several power stations and caused severe electricity shortages. This accident was followed by the implementation of policies to reduce summer electricity consumption in the affected areas, for example, by limiting air-conditioning (AC) use. This provided a natural experimental scenario to investigate if these policies were associated with an increase in heat-related mortality.

Objectives

We examined whether the reduced electricity consumption in warm season modified heat-related mortality from 2008 to 2012.

Methods

We conducted prefecture-specific interrupted time-series (ITS) analyses to compare temperature-mortality associations before and after the earthquake, and used meta-analysis to generate co

SUBMITTER: Kim Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5744700 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature